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>Would you bet a family member? "think of the children!" Lives at stake don't change anything here. The question is whether self-driving cars, even with the e

>Would you bet a family member? "think of the children!" Lives at stake don't change anything here. The question is whether self-driving cars, even with the errors, are safer for people than regular drivers on average. If so, then absolutely yes everyone should bet their lives and their families'. Thousands of people are dying every day in cars. This is not something we need to wait for it to be perfect. It only needs to be better.

rifung 7y ago
> Lives at stake don't change anything here. The question is whether self-driving cars, even with the errors, are safer for people than regular drivers on average. If so, then absolutely yes everyone should bet their lives and their families'. Maybe logically that makes sense but from an ethical perspective I argue it's much more complicated than that (e.g. the trolley problem) In the current system if a human is at fault, they take the blame for the accident. If we decide to move to self driving cars that we know are far from perfect but statistically better than humans, who do we blame when an accident inevitably happens? Do we blame the manufacturer even though their system is operating within the limits they've advertised? Or do we just say well, it's better than it used to be and it's no one's fault? When the systems become significantly better than humans, I can see this perhaps being a reasonable argument, but if it's just slightly better, I'm not sure people will be convinced.
- craftinator 7y ago
  I'm voting for the "less dead people" option. Mostly because I'm a selfish person, been in automobile accidents caused by lapsing human attention, and I want it to be less likely that I'll die in a car crash.
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    But it's not just about quantity. It's also _different_ people who will die. That radically alters things from an ethical perspective.
    - notahacker 7y ago
      Yep. Medical professionals have been aware of this dilemma for millennia: many people die from an ailment if no treatment is attempted, but bad approaches to treatment can kill people that would have survived otherwise. And setting 'better average accident rates' as the threshold for self driving vehicle software developers to be immune from the consequence of their errors is like setting 'better than witch doctors' as the threshold for making doctors immune from claims of malpractice. Move fast, break different things, is not the answer.
      - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
        What if its very much better average accident rates? This isn't black-and-white.
        notahacker 7y ago
        No, it certainly isn't black and white. Indeed 'much better' is hard to even define when human drivers cover an enormous amount of miles per accident, miles driven are heterogenous in terms of risk, there isn't even necessarily a universally accepted classification of accident severity or whether drivers should be excluded from the sample as being 'at fault' to an unacceptable degree. Plus the AV software isn't staying the same forever: every release introduces new potential edge case bugs, and any new edge case bug which produces a fatality every hundred million miles makes that software release more lethal than human drivers, even if it's better at not denting cars whilst parking and always observes speed limits in between. I don't think every new release is getting a enough billion miles of driving with safety drivers to reassure there's no statistically significant risk of new edge case bugs though. And in context, we still punish surgeons for causing fatalities through gross negligence even though overall they are many orders of magnitude better at performing surgery than the average human.
        JoeAltmaier 7y ago
        Sophistry. 'Much better' can be very clear, in terms of death or injury, or property damage, or insurance claims, or half a dozen reasonable measures. Sure it takes miles to determine what's better. Once automated driving is happening in millions (instead of hundreds) of cars on the road, it will take only days to measure.
  - erobbins 7y ago
    I vote for that option as well. So far, I have been killed exactly zero times in car crashes. All the empirical evidence tells me that there's no need to surrender control to a computer. If I die in a crash, perhaps I'll change my mind...
- strbean 7y ago
  Do we gain something from placing blame? Who do we blame for people who die from natural disasters? Freak occurrences? Are deaths where blame can be placed preferable to deaths where it cannot? By what factor? Should we try to exchange one of the latter for two of the former?
Johnny555 7y ago
There's still some nuance that's important. If self-driving cars always sacrifice other road users to protect the driver, self driving cars could be reduce death/injury overall, but there's a question about whether or not this behavior is ethical. And if the training datasets consistently label cars but not other road users, then this bias could be baked in completely by accident. It only needs to be better. A Pedestrian likely has a different definition of "better" than the car driver.
yters 7y ago
I think people intuitively ascribe a moral dimension to whether people are involved in accidents, hence why they are more worried about dying on an airplane than in a car, even though the former is much less likely than the latter. If I die in a plane, I have no control over the matter. If I die in a car, then at least I may have had control, and it could be chalked up to my inattentiveness, bad driving behavior, etc. The latter then implies the individual has direct control over whether they live or die, and can thus ensure life by being a responsible driver. I bet the same reasoning will be applied to self driving cars, even if they are orders of magnitude safer, just as the case with airplanes.
- dmix 7y ago
  The great part of self-driving cars is that just like when there are major airplane accidents there is a thorough learning process afterwards and all flights become safer as a result on a frequent basis. This is the same reality for self-driving cars. The edge cases will happen but they won't keep happening with rigorous improvements in the models and trained behaviour. Flight safety has improved dramatically over the past century and the ability for self driving cars to adapt will be even faster, as it's mostly just software. Of course this implies that an accident had to happen for such an improvement to take place. But we have both simulation improving drastically to help alleviate that plus the alternative is the current situation where the same types of accidents keep happening again and again with only the occasional improvement to car technology and safety features.
perl4ever 7y ago
"The question is whether self-driving cars, even with the errors, are safer for people than regular drivers on average. If so..." You could say "the question is whether aircraft, even with the errors, are safe for people than regular drivers on average. If so..." - then how should we change policy towards Boeing in light of the 737 MAX fiasco? Should we then avoid any adverse action towards them and focus on encouraging more people to fly? If we declare that something is safer, particularly before it even exists, isn't there a danger of a feedback loop that prevents it from being safer? Regular drivers kill people, but they are also generally vulnerable to the crashes that they cause. Boeing engineers, or the programmers of self-driving AIs, don't have their interests aligned with you, the occupant of the vehicle, nearly as much.
ClumsyPilot 7y ago
I would never buy a car that's just better than an average driver: many crashes come from driving while drunk, in a fog, on ice, etc. I would only buy a car that's as good as a fully attentive, sober, skilled and well rested driver. Besides, there will be unforceen issues that increase your likelihood of death: hacking, sensor failures, etc.

rifung 7y ago

> Lives at stake don't change anything here. The question is whether self-driving cars, even with the errors, are safer for people than regular drivers on average. If so, then absolutely yes everyone should bet their lives and their families'. Maybe logically that makes sense but from an ethical perspective I argue it's much more complicated than that (e.g. the trolley problem) In the current system if a human is at fault, they take the blame for the accident. If we decide to move to self driving cars that we know are far from perfect but statistically better than humans, who do we blame when an accident inevitably happens? Do we blame the manufacturer even though their system is operating within the limits they've advertised? Or do we just say well, it's better than it used to be and it's no one's fault? When the systems become significantly better than humans, I can see this perhaps being a reasonable argument, but if it's just slightly better, I'm not sure people will be convinced.

craftinator 7y ago
I'm voting for the "less dead people" option. Mostly because I'm a selfish person, been in automobile accidents caused by lapsing human attention, and I want it to be less likely that I'll die in a car crash.
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  But it's not just about quantity. It's also _different_ people who will die. That radically alters things from an ethical perspective.
  - notahacker 7y ago
    Yep. Medical professionals have been aware of this dilemma for millennia: many people die from an ailment if no treatment is attempted, but bad approaches to treatment can kill people that would have survived otherwise. And setting 'better average accident rates' as the threshold for self driving vehicle software developers to be immune from the consequence of their errors is like setting 'better than witch doctors' as the threshold for making doctors immune from claims of malpractice. Move fast, break different things, is not the answer.
    - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
      What if its very much better average accident rates? This isn't black-and-white.
      - notahacker 7y ago
        No, it certainly isn't black and white. Indeed 'much better' is hard to even define when human drivers cover an enormous amount of miles per accident, miles driven are heterogenous in terms of risk, there isn't even necessarily a universally accepted classification of accident severity or whether drivers should be excluded from the sample as being 'at fault' to an unacceptable degree. Plus the AV software isn't staying the same forever: every release introduces new potential edge case bugs, and any new edge case bug which produces a fatality every hundred million miles makes that software release more lethal than human drivers, even if it's better at not denting cars whilst parking and always observes speed limits in between. I don't think every new release is getting a enough billion miles of driving with safety drivers to reassure there's no statistically significant risk of new edge case bugs though. And in context, we still punish surgeons for causing fatalities through gross negligence even though overall they are many orders of magnitude better at performing surgery than the average human.
        JoeAltmaier 7y ago
        Sophistry. 'Much better' can be very clear, in terms of death or injury, or property damage, or insurance claims, or half a dozen reasonable measures. Sure it takes miles to determine what's better. Once automated driving is happening in millions (instead of hundreds) of cars on the road, it will take only days to measure.
- erobbins 7y ago
  I vote for that option as well. So far, I have been killed exactly zero times in car crashes. All the empirical evidence tells me that there's no need to surrender control to a computer. If I die in a crash, perhaps I'll change my mind...
strbean 7y ago
Do we gain something from placing blame? Who do we blame for people who die from natural disasters? Freak occurrences? Are deaths where blame can be placed preferable to deaths where it cannot? By what factor? Should we try to exchange one of the latter for two of the former?

Johnny555 7y ago

There's still some nuance that's important. If self-driving cars always sacrifice other road users to protect the driver, self driving cars could be reduce death/injury overall, but there's a question about whether or not this behavior is ethical. And if the training datasets consistently label cars but not other road users, then this bias could be baked in completely by accident. It only needs to be better. A Pedestrian likely has a different definition of "better" than the car driver.

yters 7y ago

I think people intuitively ascribe a moral dimension to whether people are involved in accidents, hence why they are more worried about dying on an airplane than in a car, even though the former is much less likely than the latter. If I die in a plane, I have no control over the matter. If I die in a car, then at least I may have had control, and it could be chalked up to my inattentiveness, bad driving behavior, etc. The latter then implies the individual has direct control over whether they live or die, and can thus ensure life by being a responsible driver. I bet the same reasoning will be applied to self driving cars, even if they are orders of magnitude safer, just as the case with airplanes.

dmix 7y ago
The great part of self-driving cars is that just like when there are major airplane accidents there is a thorough learning process afterwards and all flights become safer as a result on a frequent basis. This is the same reality for self-driving cars. The edge cases will happen but they won't keep happening with rigorous improvements in the models and trained behaviour. Flight safety has improved dramatically over the past century and the ability for self driving cars to adapt will be even faster, as it's mostly just software. Of course this implies that an accident had to happen for such an improvement to take place. But we have both simulation improving drastically to help alleviate that plus the alternative is the current situation where the same types of accidents keep happening again and again with only the occasional improvement to car technology and safety features.

perl4ever 7y ago

"The question is whether self-driving cars, even with the errors, are safer for people than regular drivers on average. If so..." You could say "the question is whether aircraft, even with the errors, are safe for people than regular drivers on average. If so..." - then how should we change policy towards Boeing in light of the 737 MAX fiasco? Should we then avoid any adverse action towards them and focus on encouraging more people to fly? If we declare that something is safer, particularly before it even exists, isn't there a danger of a feedback loop that prevents it from being safer? Regular drivers kill people, but they are also generally vulnerable to the crashes that they cause. Boeing engineers, or the programmers of self-driving AIs, don't have their interests aligned with you, the occupant of the vehicle, nearly as much.

ClumsyPilot 7y ago

I would never buy a car that's just better than an average driver: many crashes come from driving while drunk, in a fog, on ice, etc. I would only buy a car that's as good as a fully attentive, sober, skilled and well rested driver. Besides, there will be unforceen issues that increase your likelihood of death: hacking, sensor failures, etc.